This invention relates generally to recombinant expression of heteromeric receptors and, more particularly, to expression of such receptors on the surface of filamentous bacteriophage.
Antibodies are heteromeric receptors generated by a vertebrates organism's immune system which bind to an antigen. The molecules are composed of two heavy and two light chains disulfide bonded together. Antibodies have the appearance of a "Y"--shaped structure and the antigen binding portion being located at the end of both short arms of the Y. The region on the heavy and light chain polypeptides which corresponds to the antigen binding portion is known as variable region. The differences between antibodies within this region are primarily responsible for the variation in binding specificities between antibody molecules. The binding specificities are a composite of the antigen interactions with both heavy and light chain polypeptides.
The immune system has the capability of generating an almost infinite number of different antibodies. Such a large diversity is generated primarily through recombination to form the variable regions of each chain and through differential pairing of heavy and light chains. The ability to mimic the natural immune system and generate antibodies that bind to any desired molecule is valuable because such antibodies can be used for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.
Until recently, generation of antibodies against a desired molecule was accomplished only through manipulation of natural immune responses. Methods included classical immunization techniques of laboratory animals and monoclonal antibody production. Generation of monoclonal antibodies is laborious and time consuming. It involves a series of different techniques and is only performed on animal cells. Animal cells have relatively long generation times and require extra precautions to be taken compared to procaryotic cells to ensure viability of the cultures.
A method for the generation of a large repertoire of diverse antibody molecules in bacteria has been described, Huse et al., Science, 246, 1275-1281 (1989), which is herein incorporated by reference. The method uses the bacteriophage lambda as the vector. The lambda vector is a long, linear double-stranded DNA molecule. Production of antibodies using this vector involves the cloning of heavy and light chain populations of DNA sequences into separate vectors. The vectors are subsequently combined randomly to form a single vector which directs the coexpression of heavy and light chains to form antibody fragments. A disadvantage to this method is that undesired combinations of vector portions are brought together when generating the coexpression vector. Although these undesired combinations do not produce viable phage, they do however, result in a significant loss of sequences from the population and, therefore, a loss in diversity of the number of different combinations which can be obtained between heavy and light chains. Additionally, the size of the lambda phage gene is large compared to the genes that encode the antibody segments. This makes the lambda system inherently more difficult to manipulate as compared to other available vector systems.
There thus exists a need for a method to generate diverse populations of heteromeric receptors which mimics the natural immune system, which is fast and efficient and results in only desired combinations without loss of diversity. The present invention satisfies these needs and provides related advantages as well.